Working with Actinic on two pc's...

[george]

I've so far managed to resist the temptation to use Actinic on more than one pc. However updating stock, creating new products, processing orders all seem to tie up the `Actinic` pc from being able to do more than one thing at a time.

I have had a look through ALL the threads on this forum on this subject but would still like a bit of advice on the best `set-up`. I'd keep it to two pc's at the moment, which are networked together.

I'd be keen to avoid anything that could end up in current orders being over-written.

The AUG has about one sentence on this subject. I think its something that many users will upgrade to eventually. I'm sure many already have, maybe its just me thats not keeping up.

Even feedback from folks who have already got an established method would be appreciated.

[ajfish]

George,
I posted something similar at
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=10820
but had no response.

[Jim Riley]

Mole-End's multiuser should do the trick:

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/One...utomation.html

We moved to One Stop Automation a few months ago when orders reached about 30-40 per day. Never looked back. We reckon it saves us at least 2-3 hours of admin time every day.

Jim

[george]

I must be a little slow as I find the Mole End add-on a little hard to get my head round. I do know you can get a trial version but just wondered about the options just using actinic, and/or with the Mole End add on option.

[wheesh]

We have Actinic on 2 PC's.

One is used for maintaining the site and one for downloading orders. Every now and then we take a snapshot from the maintenance PC and import it into the order processing PC using the "do not overwrite order information option"

The only additional factor is Sage and Actiniclink.

Orders from the Orders PC are exported to Sage using Actiniclink where they are processed and then on a daily basis the stock levels are exported from Sage to the Actinic maintenance PC to keep online stock levels up to date.

[Jan]

Mole-End's multiuser should do the trick:

This is actually at http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/One...rocessing.html

We have two main order processing products, one is automation and it single user (George your stock control mole is part of this), the other is One Stop Order Processing, which give you multi-user access, batch order processing and advanced search facilities. It is a bit confusing because the products do similar things.

If you are confused George, give me a call and tell me what you need to achieve and I will try to help.

Regards,

[george]

A quick question on the multi-user one Jan, it it the ME software that you use on the `other` machines, or Actinic Cat, or both? I think IDEALLY I'd have one main machine running Actic, in full (order processing and cat updating), but be able to post payments, add shipping, etc from the second machine AS WELL as the main one. Is this possible. Obviously the main pc is my one but I like to keep an eye on whats going out for re-ordering and `hiding` out of stock items that maybe won't be coming back in for a while.

I really hope this is understandable...

[cbarling]

George, you might want to call Actinic sales about this as we have something in the pipeline and you might want to be part of the test group.

Chris
Actinic

[Jan]

A quick question on the multi-user one Jan, it it the ME software that you use on the `other` machines, or Actinic Cat, or both? I think IDEALLY I'd have one main machine running Actic, in full (order processing and cat updating), but be able to post payments, add shipping, etc from the second machine AS WELL as the main one. Is this possible

You can install our program any machine that is on the same internal network at the Actinic installation. You can have it on the Actinic machine but it is not a requirement. The best thing to do is to install a copy and see it in action, then if you have any questions, just give me a call.

Regards,

[Sparky]

With reference to Georges last email above, i figured that running actinic on two PC's was possible. I when i have got my ssl problems sorted was aiming to have Actinic on my PC as the main user, for updating cart keeping an eye on stock etc. but also on a second pc which is on the same network to deal with all the ordering etc. I believe this is the same style of setup that George is refering too, however my PC is a laptop which i do maintenance and updating work from home.

What I am trying to say is that can this be done ok? I am slightly confused now!

Cheers
Mark

[Jan]

You can use Actinic on two PC's the license allows it and it works well, however once you are split order processing and catalog maintenance however, you cannot use stock control because you upload from one machine and download from another and so the stock levels of the products are not automatically uploaded on the maintenance PC (because they are adjusted when orders are downloaded which is now happening somewhere else). This is going to cause a problem for you George because you need your stock control to work.

Customer accounts don't work so well either when you have split your catalog over two machines because you can't create accounts using the create account button on the order details unless you copy your orders over to your catalog maintenance machine.

Regards,

[george]

I must say stock control is essential.